While They Are Still Around
| Tina |
| Tina |
Tina was my grandmother.
This story is about her and others like her who lived the same times, the same way, the same hardlife. She was my grandmother. She shaped me and educated me without words or written lessons since she herself had not got a formal education. She was born and lived all her life in a small village, in the north of Romania.
My childhood was marked by the flavour of the rural Transylvania,the smell of the animals in the stable and that of fresh hay. I cannot forget the joy of making dolls out of corn cobs, walking barefoot in the mud, chasing dogs and being chased by them. Time passes fast and things change even faster. Places like my childhood’s village are fewer and fewer. I am a grown-up now, and I see things differently nowadays. I see the hardship of our grandparents lives, things that I have missed, or rather, been kept away from, for the sake of my innocence. I see our grandparents’ cracked old hands. I see the dark clothes that the widows never stopped wearing after their husbands died. I stare at them and cannot help wondering where is their humour and strength still coming from?
Tina tried to teach me how to be a good human being. I hope I am, I hope I had learned her lesson. No words, no lectures. Just following her example.
All this happened along time ago. When I grew up I left for school and work, to places far away from my grandmother’s village. I saw her seldom. But she was always in my heart. And she will always be. My grandmother. Tina.
There still are people like her in the small villages of Transylvania. This story is about them. About their strength and their optimism. As long as they are still around.
This story is about her and others like her who lived the same times, the same way, the same hardlife. She was my grandmother. She shaped me and educated me without words or written lessons since she herself had not got a formal education. She was born and lived all her life in a small village, in the north of Romania.
My childhood was marked by the flavour of the rural Transylvania,the smell of the animals in the stable and that of fresh hay. I cannot forget the joy of making dolls out of corn cobs, walking barefoot in the mud, chasing dogs and being chased by them. Time passes fast and things change even faster. Places like my childhood’s village are fewer and fewer. I am a grown-up now, and I see things differently nowadays. I see the hardship of our grandparents lives, things that I have missed, or rather, been kept away from, for the sake of my innocence. I see our grandparents’ cracked old hands. I see the dark clothes that the widows never stopped wearing after their husbands died. I stare at them and cannot help wondering where is their humour and strength still coming from?
Tina tried to teach me how to be a good human being. I hope I am, I hope I had learned her lesson. No words, no lectures. Just following her example.
All this happened along time ago. When I grew up I left for school and work, to places far away from my grandmother’s village. I saw her seldom. But she was always in my heart. And she will always be. My grandmother. Tina.
There still are people like her in the small villages of Transylvania. This story is about them. About their strength and their optimism. As long as they are still around.
